Owner

Current status

Detailed Description

DragonEgg is a gcc plugin that replaces GCC's optimizers and code generators with those from the LLVM project. It can target the x86-32/x86-64 and ARM processor families. It fully supports C, C++ and Fortran. It has partial support for Ada, Go, Java, Obj-C and Obj-C++.

Benefit to Fedora

Inclusion of DragonEgg in Fedora Linux provides software developers with more optimization and code generation options for use of the GCC compilers with most of languages supported by GCC. DragonEgg also allows GCC to be used for cross-compilation to target architectures supported by LLVM without requiring any special cross-compilation compiler packages.

Scope

Each DragonEgg release is dependent on the corresponding release of LLVM, and also supports specific releases of GCC. The package maintainer will have to track these releases. The DragonEgg feature does not affect other parts of the distribution.

How To Test

No special hardware/data/etc. is needed.

There should not be any special preparation needed beyond installation of the dragonegg package.

Compile a few C (or Fortran, etc.) programs using GCC with dragonegg. This is done by invoking GCC in the normal way, but with the addition of a "-fplugin=dragonegg" command line argument.

Programs compiled using GCC with dragonegg should produce the same results as those compiled with normal GCC, though the performance may vary since different otimizers and code generators are used.

User Experience

This package is only applicable to developers, and will not directly affect user experience.

Dependencies

No other packages presently depend on this feature.

Contingency Plan

None necessary. DragonEgg can be omitted if there are problems.

Documentation

Release Notes

DragonEgg is a plugin for the GCC compilers to allow use of the LLVM optimization and code generation framework. DragonEgg provides software developers with more optimization and code generation options for use with the GCC compilers. DragonEgg also allows GCC to be used for cross-compilation to target architectures supported by LLVM without requiring any special cross-compilation compiler packages.